Talk:Andy Borowitz

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is Andy Borowitz jewish? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.94.1.64 (talk) 20:10, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * well if you look at the article's categories apparently he is -Mkonikov (talk) 03:37, 22 December 2010 (UTC)

Pope Emeritus (rapper)
An apparently satirical column was turned into an article, Pope Emeritus (rapper), lets hope the media dont discover we believed it. unless, of course, its true...Mercurywoodrose (talk) 01:56, 22 March 2013 (UTC)

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Attempts to blank out the criticism content
I have found out recently that the criticism section and its written content, which I remembered to have existed a few years ago, has vanished from the article. Checking the edit history, it looks like a rarely used IP editor 72.215.236.232 has without warning blanked the section. IP user 173.77.0.185 disagreed with it and undid the blank, and user Terry Foote suddenly swooped in and reverted the undo. This led to an edit war with the section left gone without any constructive discussion in this talk page.

This same user has been involved in other cases of deleting any insertion of criticism content from this article. The user's edit reasons are not convincing - Terry Foote is defending this drive-by section blanking by IP 72.215.236.232 while accusing 173.77.0.185 of being agenda-driven instead of presuming good faith, when all the latter was trying to do was to undo a blanking out of genuine disagreement, and restore things as it was until an agreed resolution can be achieved in the talk page. As advocates of a major change it's on Terry Foote and that other IP user to justify the change. The edit reason of "Reverted, and I'll continue to revert" doesn't make me confident either, as it's a sign of defiance that refuses to resolve the matter via discussion.

If editors disagree that there should be a criticism "section" then the critiques should instead be weaved into the article some other way, not blanketed whole. The problem here is that this article currently has many descriptions lavishing praise on Borowitz as a humorist, but a couple of editors are adamant about erasing any trace of commentary that do not favor his humor. These forms of commentary are well-sourced encyclopedic content, reporting on what commentators actually said and not some made up OR. 2603:8000:B600:4000:3485:C2A6:1AF7:FB80 (talk) 04:57, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Andy Borowitz is a political satirist. His comparable contemporaries, off the top of my head, are Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart.  Neither Colbert nor Stewart have a "criticisms" section.  So by your logic, you should apply equal time and vigor in your instance that Colbert and Stewart have "criticisms" sections.  Now, let's look at the criticisms you chose: "self-satisfied liberals" with material that "is designed to elicit a smirk of recognition and agreement from your average polite NPR listener." or this "Gawker later criticized Borowitz for his brand of "algorithm-friendly fake news parasites that plague our Facebook timelines under the auspice of satire. Satire that is little more than a vehicle for misinformation and much more akin to a lie than anything else."  I read all three articles you sited and they all can be summed up as saying that the authors don't find Borowitz funny.  That isn't useful because it's assumed that humor is subjective.  The way in which it was stated that the authors don't find Borowitz funny; those aren't criticisms, those are personal attacks.  And you are so committed to making sure that a personal attack appears on Borowitz's Wikipedia entry that you used a quote from a now defunct gossip site, Gawker.  And while I try my best to assume good faith, I do assume good faith with anonymous IP addresses such as yourself when the content is constructive and the tone is neutral.  The tone of your chosen quotations is shrill and excoriating.  So, when an anonymous IP address insists on shrill and excoriating content, I'll admit, it causes me concern for their motivations.  So, if you're doing this for the good of Wikipedia, follow your own logic, and make sure that Colbert and Stewart have criticism sections.  What you chose sounds more fitting for the Fox News sponsored Wikipedia, if there were one.  Anyone who is an established member of the community who disagrees, I'll respect their opinion.  However, for you anonymous IP, I'll add that it takes two for an edit war.  Terry Foote (talk) 17:50, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I didn't "choose" these articles. I pass no judgement on the content and their sources. All I'm trying to do is restore an encyclopedic content that was left intact in the past (I know that this content existed back in 2016, therefore it was there for at least two years, so it's not like someone suddenly wrote an OR essay that was promptly reverted).
 * Left intact, before an IP suddenly blanked the whole thing (as in, instead of editing the content constructively or format it better), and then when others try to revert what was essentially vandalism, you keep swooping in to reimpose it and say that IP was correct. When others challenge a sudden section blanking the response isn't to just redo it, but to bring the discussion here. This talk page section should've happened three years ago, and no such change to happen until there's some consensus.
 * Again, my point is not so much about the content but about how to approach this kind of a major change. If you think those other humorists deserve criticism sections (or interweaved criticism content with sources) then feel free to write them. But whether they haven't been written yet does not mean that it shoulnd't be here because people just happened to work on this one, and doesn't entitle you to unilaterally erase and re-erase. Like I mentioned above, if a 'section' isn't appropriate then the contents should be seamlessly inserted in existed sections. (And if humor is indeed subjective that applies to all the praise too.) 2600:387:C:7210:0:0:0:1 (talk) 20:24, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * "Swooping" - you use that word a lot. I don't think that word means what you think it means.  A little "Princess Bride" reference for you.  I love that movie.  OK, now criticisms.  Who chose the articles really is irrelevant.  However, you are the one so vigorously defending their inclusion, so you do have a dog somewhere in this petty quibble.  First of all, it's entirely customary on Wikipedia that articles change considerably over time, with entire sections being omitted as part of those changes, so I don't understand why this is such a bad thing.  Furthermore, with regard to criticisms, let's say hypothetically, Andy Borowitz was involved in some shady financial practices, or made racial jokes that offended a lot of people - that is worthy of an encyclopedia article.  A bunch of click-bait snark written by people on a slow-news day, that's not worthy.  Really, of all three quotations, they can be synopsized as this - "these people don't think Andy Borowtiz is funny."  If this were the general standard of inclusion for an article, every single famous person dead or alive would need the same thing in their article: Blah MacBlahBlah thinks Bono is an awful singer.  John Q. Nimrod thinks James Joyce is pretentious and overrated.  SO WHAT!?!  So, that said, go out and find your consensus, and I'll knock it off.  Otherwise, these quotes you so strenuously support just plain suck.  You seem like an intelligent person, why don't you go out there and find some better criticisms of Andy Borowitz if it means so much to you?  Take it easy.  Terry Foote (talk) 20:30, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Here's the thing: if the article is showered with opinionated comments about how funny his works are, then opinionated pieces that have less charitable views about his humor also belong in the article. Aside from the evaluation about whether he's funny, he's also been criticized for repeatedly hashing out obvious satires that would just repeat what the readers already know or think, rather than using satire as a tool to help people get informed (source wweek.com). His recent book, Profiles in Ignorance: How America's Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber, was critiqued by this article in Slate which states that Borowitz's overemphasis on intellectual deficiency in politics is misplaced.

And what I think is the most important concern - Borowitz, to my knowledge, has never worked as an actual (non-satirical) journalist in his life, and yet Google news feeds prominently mix in The Borowitz Report alongside other news articles, and it's not necessarily apparent when you open the articles in The New Yorker magazine that it's not actual news. I don't know if Google, The New Yorker, or Borowitz himself is to blame for this (this WWD article states it's something with the Google algorithm), but it's irritating when they show up among the actual news you're looking for, although later on they have Borowitz's articles showing up with notes like "Satire" and "Not the news". And it goes beyond annoyance, as there's a concern about misinformation with these satires accidentally picked up as real. Borowitz, for his part, gave his thoughts about fake news, as reported in this LoHud article. This would all be encyclopedic content if written correctly.

By the way, The New Yorker's hosting of The Borowitz Report in late 2023 (sources in Deadline and Variety), so that should be added to the article, too. 104.175.78.152 (talk) 06:08, 14 April 2024 (UTC)